"I hate her. I hate her. I—hate—her."

Cooper emphasized each her by banging on the inside of his locker, which really did nothing except...well, hurt his fist. He cradled his sore hand.

When had life become so complicated? He was stuck between a rock and a psychopath, and he couldn't see any clear way out.

Did you ever stop to consider what it meant if I wasn't the one holding the knife?

No. No, he hadn't. But now the idea was there, haunting his every step, his every breath. He couldn't even enjoy a snack in peace these days. Every bite—every loud, ominous crunch—reminded him of the sound of breaking bones.

His bones. The ones Calla would break once she decided his life was no longer worth entertaining.

You just had to poke the bear. Didn't you, Coop?

He pulled out his Spanish II notebook with an angry sigh, ignoring the slip of paper that fluttered out of his locker. He trudged off to class.

His mood didn't improve when he noticed Vincent wasn't waiting for him in his usual seat, a stupid grin on his face, ready to tell Cooper some graphic story about which girl he'd been with after the game. As much as he hated those stories—who liked to be reminded that they weren't getting laid?—he hated being alone in this class even more.

He unpacked his things, taking some small comfort in the normalcy of it. It felt good to take a breath and do something familiar. Something mindless. Automatic. And entirely unrelated to the murders plaguing their quaint town.

Ms. Esperanza passed out their in-class assignment, oblivious to the dark mood of the room. That, or she just didn't care. The sea of students, dressed respectfully in black, didn't deter her.

Cooper couldn't concentrate, but he blew through the assignment anyway, eager to be done with it so he could sit in peace and spend the rest of class mulling over what to do about Calla Parker. Not that it was ever peaceful thinking about her. It was actually a very stressful activity he tried to avoid at all costs.

But there was no more avoiding Calla. Not anymore. Not now that he'd confronted her outside of her own window.

Who do you think you are, Coop? You're a kid. Not a detective. Leave the police work to the police.

He really wished Vincent were here. He felt like he was about to explode from stress.

The last thing Vincent had said to him on Sunday was that they needed to talk. Well, two could play at that game. Cooper had more than enough to talk about. As for Vincent, he probably just wanted to vent about Astrid...who was the absolute last person on Cooper's mind. But if venting was what Vincent needed, where the hell was he? As far as Cooper knew, he wasn't sick—

Jacob's a dead man walking.

Vincent's words from last Saturday. Cooper could still taste the fury in the air as his friend confronted him, all but promising Jacob's head on a spike.

Before Cooper could process the implications of that thought, the bell rang, releasing the class to their lunch break. His stomach tightened. He couldn't imagine eating food. Not right now.

Not with his head full of horrible, horrible possibilities.

Don't jump to conclusions. He was kidding. Vincent would never kill someone.

Cooper shuffled to his locker, effectively avoiding the cafeteria. No one cast him so much as a sideways glance. His infamy had dissipated overnight. He'd been at the diner with his mom when they'd heard the news of the murder—an alibi that had apparently banished any suspicions that he was a cold-blooded murderer.

He should have been relieved. But he wasn't.

Could his best friend really be capable of murder? He couldn't imagine it. He'd seen the dead body circulating on social media. To think of Vincent inflicting that kind of damage...

He took out his phone, typing furiously. He needed answers, and he needed them now.

"You know what I find fascinating?"

Cooper nearly jumped out of his skin, an unintelligible curse slipping from his lips.

He turned. Calla watched him with a hint of amusement, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. How the hell did she always do that? Were psychopaths born with some innate ability to creep around undetected?

His eyes narrowed. "You."

"Me. Who else?" She stepped forward. He took a step back—playing it safe.

"Are you stalking me now?" He swallowed audibly, and her smile cracked into a grin.

"Bold of you. Accusing me of being a stalker." Her eyes slid to the camera around his neck. "And you didn't answer my question."

She wore black today in solidarity with the rest of the student body mourning Jacob Stein's death. The fitted turtleneck clung to her throat, emphasizing her pale skin and fiery hair. He watched as she reached up to brush a loose strand from her cheek. Her movements were so sure, so confident.

Like a predator, she was perfectly evolved to blend into her environment. Her smile, camouflage. Her laughter, a tactical distraction.

To anyone else, she might have looked angelic. Cooper couldn't exactly disagree. Though the angel he had in mind was an angel of death. Vengeful and ferocious.

Cooper sucked in a deep breath. He really did not have time for her condescension. Not today. Not when his gut writhed like a bag of worms, his mind miles away. "Fine. What do you find so fascinating?"

She showed him the hand she'd been holding behind her back, producing a folded piece of paper. "For such a neat freak, I never took you for a litter bug."

He stared at the paper in her hands. His mind drew a blank. "Should I know what that is?"

"Probably not. You're pretty unobservant." She tossed the note, overestimating his athletic ability. He tried and failed to catch it, and then bent over to pick it up with a huff.

She rolled her eyes.

Ignoring her, he opened the scrap of paper. His stomach lurched and then went still.

The edges were torn, the paper thick—as if from the pages of a book. The bottom left half had been lost, but Cooper could clearly make out the excerpt circled in violent red ink, as if to draw the eye.

I'm Death, and I make all equal.

But what truly made the otherwise worthless piece of trash distinct—and what left his fingers trembling, so much so that the page itself began to quiver—had to be red number six carved across the page, dominating the space.

Cooper tried to muster an ounce of his earlier bravado. "Is this your version of a love letter?"

Calla crossed her arms and leaned against the lockers. Her soulless eyes never left his face. "That fell out of your locker today."

"You put it there?"

"We've been over this. I didn't kill Jacob. And I didn't put that page in your locker."

That page. It had taken Cooper a trip to the library to figure out that the last note had been torn from the pages of a book. She'd already put it together.

"Then..." He grasped for the right words.

She shrugged. "The killer left that." Her barbed smile returned. "For you."

The words left him cold. Cold to the bone.

"So," Calla continued, as if this news were not life-altering. "Are you going to keep feeding me lines of bullshit, or are you going to tell me about what, exactly, you saw that night?"

She wanted to know about the page. Not this page, but the page from that night—arguably the worst night of his life. Of course she wanted to know about the page. Of course she didn't care about his well-being.

She'll sting you one day. Oh, ever so gently...

He looked at her. Really looked at her. The mush in his gut solidified, turning into something harder. Something very like fear.

And even that didn't do it justice. He couldn't quite describe the way he felt in her presence. It was as if she were some colossal planet, and he was one of her many, insignificant moons—wheeling blindly through the stars, lost in her gravitational pull. Completely and totally at her mercy.

"Why do you care," he whispered, dodging her question. He needed time to think. He had to weigh the pros and cons of this—of telling his psychopathic neighbor what he knew. What would she do with the information? Would she lord it over his head?

She's not the only one with cards to play, he thought, using his free hand to clutch the camera at his neck. His safety line.

Calla appraised him with a look of such indifference that he recoiled. "Care?"

He swallowed audibly. Her eyes roved over him as if she'd heard the sound. Heard it, and was disgusted by his bodily noises. "About that night. About what I saw. Why do you care?"

Don't you already know everything about that night, Calla? Your hands were around her throat.

Her eyes bored into him. And then: "Curiosity."

Killed the cat.

Cooper wasn't buying it. His hand convulsed around the torn page in his hand, which did nothing for his unease. If anything, holding his death sentence made him feel worse.

"Let's...let's just take this to the police," he started slowly, trying desperately to find a way out of his current predicament. "We can go after school. I'll go with you or I can go alone and we can figure this out."

She considered her words carefully before she spoke. "That's not how this game works."

"Game." He felt small at that moment. Incredibly small. "This is my life."

"And it's mine, too." There was no apology in her voice. "I'm not the one making the rules here, Coop. There's somebody else running the show. And if the police catch whoever this is...they'll catch me, too. They'll put it together." She frowned. "I can't let that happen."

They'll put it together. It was as close to a confession as he would ever get. Tracy had not been murdered by some psychopath behind the curtain.

She'd been murdered by the one standing in front of him.

Cooper lowered his voice despite the eerie emptiness of the halls. "I don't care if they catch you. I'm going to the station after school."

She didn't seem surprised by his answer. That gave him pause.

She tapped one foot against the lockers, thoughtful. "If you insist..." She sighed. "Guess that means I have to tell Cory."

He wanted to turn and walk away, preferably in some dramatic fashion that involved flipping her the bird as he went. But she was calm. Too calm.

And what the hell did Cory Michaels have to do with any of this?

Cooper really didn't want to take the bait. He knew she was dangling it in front of his face for a reason, waiting for him to bite.

But what choice did he have? He spit the words out: "Tell Cory what?"

She smiled, smug. "About Vincent. And his...threats."

His blood ran cold. All of his fears from earlier—the terrible possibilities running through his head—came swarming back, overwhelming him. "Threats?"

She can't know about that. He thought back to the day Vincent stood at the threshold to his apartment, murder in his eyes. She wasn't there. And Vincent isn't dumb enough to run his mouth at school, not with a murderer running around.

"Threats," she confirmed, causing his stomach to drop again with unease. "Hypothetical threats. But if I tell Cory that I heard something suspicious..."

Another shrug.

Cooper's unease was quickly replaced by fury. "Vincent didn't hurt—"

Calla interrupted him with a sharp look. "You've considered the possibility, though. I can tell by the look on your face. You're afraid." She cocked her head to one side, giving him a languid smile. "Let me paint you a picture. Jacob hurts you. Vincent hurts him back. He's big enough to get the job done. They play on the same team—that's how he managed to corner Jacob after the game. Anyone would believe it. Hell. I believe it. Don't you?"

Cooper couldn't speak. Couldn't think. Her words sucked him in, filling him with dread.

"And Tracy?" Calla tsked. "Poor girl. Astrid probably used Vincent to get her out of the picture. He's always been a people-pleaser."

Cooper struggled to find a rebuttal.

"Gerald Michaels will listen to his son," she continued. "And Cory will listen to me."

"It's a lie," he accused her. "Vincent didn't hurt anyone."

"So you say," she murmured, less jubilant now. Her eyes narrowed, sharpening her features. "It makes sense. Vincent has more than enough motive. Maybe it wouldn't be a lie." The barbed smile returned. "Besides. I lie every day. To everyone. About everything. Don't you remember?"

Cooper slid to the floor, clutching his camera in one hand and his death sentence in the other. If he could have suspicions about Vincent—his best friend, his brother—then it followed that the rest of Greenwitch might believe it. People were scared. They needed someone to blame.

Calla had painted a grim picture, indeed.

Cooper couldn't let Vincent go down for this. Once he became a suspect, it would start a domino effect that could potentially ruin his life. College football prospects. His relationship with his father, volatile as it already was. To suffer all of that, especially if he was innocent...

He looked up at Calla. She stood over him, waiting patiently for his response. But the look in her eyes was sure. She knew what he was going to say.

He closed his eyes, blocking out her face. "I can't go to the police."

"You go to the police, and I go to Cory. Your choice."

"That's not much of a choice," he muttered darkly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What do you want to know?"

"Don't be dense, Coop."

He felt too overwhelmed to argue. Calla had found his ultimate weakness. And unfortunately, her threats were not idle.

"There was a page," he started, nauseous. The polaroid in his front pocket—the one he carried with him at all times, too anxious to leave it at home—burned like an accusation. "Just like the one in my locker. I didn't notice it at first, that night. But the sheriff...he gave me a photograph of a note they found at the first crime scene. He asked if I recognized it. I didn't. I still don't. It's from some book, Grimm's Fairy Tales. I assumed you knew about it."

He opened his eyes to pin her with a look. She studiously ignored him, her eyes on the ceiling and hands behind her back.

"I figured as much," she murmured. "The page. What did it say?"

It was as if she could sense his defeat. He sighed and recited the words, a chill rolling down his spine as he did so.

"Interesting." Her eyes slid back down to his face. "A second page was left at the crime scene with Jacob Stein. I'd guess it's another page from the same book."

Cooper blinked. She noted the confusion on his face and sighed.

"That page in your locker. It's from a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales. I couldn't find it in the library..." she trailed off.

"I already tried that," he inserted, trying to prove that he wasn't completely incompetent. It wasn't until she smirked that he realized he'd just confirmed one of her theories—that he'd been snooping around the library for good reason.

His cheeks flamed. He pressed a hand to his forehead to try and hide his irritation. "And Jacob?"

"I'm sure you've seen the picture on social media already." He grimaced. He had. And if he never saw a dead body again, it would be too soon. "There's a white piece of paper in the lower left corner." She began pacing a few inches away, encroaching on his space. The smell of strawberries followed her.

"How did you know what to look for?" he asked, at a loss.

"Cory." Her answer was short. Simple. "He told me about the first note. He's trying to seduce me with information from Daddy Dearest."

"It's working," Cooper muttered, ignoring her sharp glare.

Her eyes slid away, falling on an abstract mural that occupied most of the space between the computer lab and the classroom at the end of the hall. "I have to wonder, though. You're clearly on the list. If there is a list. I can't imagine the killer would target you like this for no reason. Why not just kill you? Why leave a warning? If it's anticipation he's looking for, he'd probably do the same for the others..."

She trailed off. Cooper picked up where her train of thought ended.

"What about Jacob's locker?" he asked, standing suddenly. His head swam. "What if there's a page—"

"Excellent." Calla grabbed him by the front of his hoodie. He was so alarmed that he allowed her to drag him a few steps before he put up any resistance. "Good thinking, Coop."

"What are you doing?" he hissed, swatting her hand away. She let him go without a backwards glance, continuing down the hall with more haste than before.

He hesitated, torn between curiosity and reason. Curiosity, because he was almost positive that his theory was correct. He couldn't be the only one receiving death threats in his locker.

But then his voice of reason kicked in.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Digging around in a dead kid's locker. You're gonna get caught.

"Calla," he started after her, his voice barely above a hiss. He voiced his concerns. "Calla. We're gonna get caught!"

She turned the corner. He went after her—and then ran straight into her back.

He swore.

"You're right," she muttered, staring at the cluster of lockers at the end of the hall. He saw her shoulders relax. "Well. You would be right. The cameras don't work in the east wing."

She shot him a sly look. He almost smiled back, overly excited about their bizarre, spur-of-the-moment mission.

The adrenaline rush quickly faded when they reached the row of lockers. Jacob's locker—it couldn't have been anyone else's—had been taped over, no doubt to discourage scavengers. A pile of flowers had gathered on the ground, along with pictures that friends had left behind in remembrance.

Calla swore. "Well. Should have seen that one coming."

Cooper spotted a photograph, larger than the others, of Ryan and Jacob with their arms slung over each other. On a whim, he bent to retrieve the picture. He flipped it over, surprised to find words scrawled on the back.

"I'm sorry," he read aloud, turning the picture in his hands. Hoping that more words would appear, maybe.

I'm sorry you died? Or whoops, I'm sorry I killed you?

Calla plucked the photo from his grasp.

"Hey!" he objected. She analyzed it from every angle before handing it back.

"You should keep that," she said shortly, not bothering to explain herself.

"Why? And why me?"

Her eyes fell to the camera around his neck. "Call it a hunch."

"Fine. What now?" Cooper asked, pocketing the photo. He felt irrationally upset. They'd been on to something. He could feel it...

"What now?" she asked, perplexed. She shot him an amused look from over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Ease up, Sherlock Holmes. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me or my ilk."

"Did you just call a vicious killer your ilk?"

She sighed, turning to face him. "Look. Coop. Your input has been...invaluable. I appreciate the intel. But the road ends here."

"But..." he floundered for words. Why should he feel so disappointed?

You should be relieved. Turn around. Turn around and run.

She waited for him to elaborate. Something about her posture—or maybe it was the look in her eyes—seemed off. "Yes?"

"What about Vincent?" he asked.

She paused. Patient. Composed. Not at all like the irate, restless creature he knew her to be—when they were alone, at least. "You've told me enough. I don't need anything else from you. If you keep your mouth shut...then I'll do the same."

Her words felt like a slap.

I don't need anything else from you.

Relieved. He should have been relieved. She had let him off the hook. He'd told her what he knew, and now he simply had to mind his own business. Vincent would be safe.

But he wouldn't be safe. The scrap of paper in his hand felt as if it weighed twenty pounds.

"I...this is my life," he whispered, struggling to articulate the way he felt. "I'm going to die. If the police can't find this guy, I'm going to die. We have information. We have this." He lifted the torn page, holding it between them. "You can't go on some crazy, suicidal solo hunt!"

She watched him. Carefully. "I never said I was on a hunt."

"You didn't have to," he murmured, running a hand through his hair—once, twice, three times. "I know you. You have questions. And you don't ask questions if you aren't looking for answers." He met her watchful eye, fearful and yet more sure of himself than he'd been in a long time. "You want to find this guy. To protect yourself. And I can help."

Saying those words felt horribly wrong. Every instinct he had screamed for him to run. To hide. To crawl inside a dark hole and wait for the creature lurking outside to pass.

But that wasn't an option. Not anymore. His fingers convulsed around the edges of the page.

"You can help," she repeated. That light in her eyes—the one he couldn't quite place—brightened. "How?"

"This isn't a one-man show. I don't care who you think you are. If I'm six on a hit list, that means there are at least three other people in danger. And, let me remind you," he added quickly, "this is my life. My neck. If you think I'm going to trust you to figure this shit out, you're insane. You can't just throw threats in my face and expect me to sit on the sidelines." He took a deep breath. "So. You're stuck with me."

Calla stared. And stared. And stared.

"Alright," she said, perfectly at ease with the decision.

He deflated somewhat. "You...alright?"

"Alright," she agreed again. The bell rang, startling him. She laughed and punched him in the arm—a little too hard.

The door to the computer lab opened, releasing a flood of students. Cooper knew he would lose her in the crowd quickly, that she would turn and leave and he would not be able to follow. But before she did, she grinned at him, and the strange light in her eyes suddenly made sense.

He'd given her exactly what she wanted. Information—and an ally.

"Let's catch a killer," she said with a laugh, turning away.

And just as she always did, she disappeared.